Hey everyone!
Excuse me for the slightly clickbaity title (is it, though?). I need all the advice I can get here.
About six months ago, I ignored all the common advice and started working on the Dream Game™ as my first commercial release. I expect it to be ready in about four years.
Since I had no real marketing experience, I've been learning by listening to GDC talks and Chris Z's videos whenever I have "dumb chores" time or similar. More and more, I see proof of the great advantages of making small games: building on past releases, proving your ability to ship, and confronting yourself with the market as early as possible.
Obviously, that clashes pretty hard with a four-year first project. So I thought, and thought, and thought — and a few days ago, something clicked.
What if I were to release features of my game as standalone "mini"-games?
I'm working on a 4X grand strategy game, which is basically at least four games smashed into one. So if I'm working on the trading system, why not take a short detour and make a trading game in, say, 3 to 9 months, and release it for 10 bucks? Then do the same later for colony building, exploration, war...
I could even make a franchise out of it. The full game is called Uncharted Sectors, so the smaller ones could be titled Uncharted Sectors: [Trading Game Name], Uncharted Sectors: [Colony Management Game Name], and so on. It would build up the IP and help with brand recognition.
On the plus side:
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I prove to the world (and myself) that I'm actually releasing games, not vaporware,
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I continue working on the systems of my dream game most of the time: code can be reused and improved based on player feedback,
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Bugfixing the mini-games will probably help squash bugs in the main game, at least for the core shared code,
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I gain actual release experience, which will benefit the dream game,
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Players who bought the mini-games are likely future buyers of the full game thanks to the shared IP/brand,
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Hopefully, it generates a bit of revenue to help fund the dream game,
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And if I'm making terrible products, it's better to find out after 9 months than after dedicating 4 years of my life to it.
On the minus side:
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Total dev time will increase,
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I might get sidetracked,
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My current following might hate the idea,
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If one of the mini-games is bad, it could damage my reputation and deter people from checking out the full game.
As you can see, the downside seems pretty small compared to the upside. So either it’s a very good idea... or I’m missing something big. That's why I'm here: please poke holes in this plan and find more reasons why it might be a bad idea!
Also, on a more general note: do you know of any games that have done something like this? What do you think of the idea? I'd love to hear anything relevant to the topic.
And of course the idea is free: feel free to copy it if you think it’s interesting. :)
I didn't know about it, thanks for the link :)